The eruption of 1793 presented a different aspect. Dr. Clarke tells us that millions of red-hot stones were propelled into the air to at least half the height of the cone itself; then turning, they fell all around in noble curves. They covered nearly half the cone of Vesuvius with fire. Huge masses of white smoke were vomited forth by the disturbed mountain, and formed themselves, at a height of many thousands of feet above the crater, into a huge, ever-moving canopy, through which, from time to time, were hurled pitch-black jets of volcanic dust, and dense vapours, mixed with cascades of red-hot rocks and scori?. The rain which fell from the cloud-canopy was scalding hot taiwan prepaid sim card.
Dr. Clarke was able to compare the different appearances presented by the lava where it burst from the very mouth of the crater, and lower down when it had approached the plain. As it rushed forth from its imprisonment, it streamed, a liquid, white, and brilliantly pure river, which burned for itself a smooth channel185 through a great arched chasm in the side of the mountain. It flowed with the clearness of ‘honey in regular channels, cut finer than art can imitate, and glowing with all the splendour of the sun. Sir William Hamilton had conceived,’ adds Dr. Clarke, ‘that stones thrown upon a current of lava would produce no impression. I was soon convinced of the contrary. Light bodies, indeed, of five, ten, and fifteen pounds’ weight, made little or no impression, even at the source; but bodies of sixty, seventy, and eighty pounds were seen to form a kind of bed on the surface of the lava, and float away with it dermes. A stone of three hundredweight, that had been thrown out by the crater, lay near the source of the current of lava. I raised it up on one end, and then let it fall in upon the liquid lava, when it gradually sank beneath the surface and disappeared. If I wished to describe the manner in which it acted upon the lava, I should say that it was like a loaf of bread thrown into a bowl of very thick honey, which gradually involves itself in the heavy liquid and then .
But as the lava flowed down the mountain slopes it lost its brilliant whiteness; a crust began to form upon the surface of the still molten lava, and this crust broke into innumerable fragments of porous matter called scori?. Underneath this crust—across which Dr. Clarke and his companions were able to pass without other injury than the singeing of their boots—the liquid lava still continued to force its way onward and downward past all obstacles. On its186 arrival at the bottom of the mountain, says Dr. Clarke, ‘the whole current,’ encumbered with huge masses of scori?, ‘resembled nothing so much as a heap of unconnected cinders from an iron foundry,’ ‘rolling slowly along,‘ he says in another place, ‘and falling with a rattling noise over one another dermes.’
But in war it is not always reasons which are purely military that operate; and as this war got into its second year there were many forces, each of which contributed something towards driving the German Navy into action. First, and in all probability by far the most powerful, would be the impatience of a large body of brave and skilful278 seamen—in control of an enormous sea force—with the r?le of idleness and impotence that had been imposed upon them apartment hong kong. The German apologist, when uttering his p?ans of triumph over the bombardments of Lowestoft, said, on May 7:
“It must not be assumed that this adventure was a mere question of bombarding some fortified coast places. It would also be a mistake to think that it was only an expression of the spirit of enterprise in our young Navy. The spirit is indeed just as fresh as ever, and is simply thirsting for deeds, and when one sees or talks to officers and men one reads on their lips the desire ‘If only we could get out.’ The sitting still during the spring and winter may also play their part in this. Only a well-considered leadership knows when it will use this thirst for action, and employ it in undertakings which keep the great whole in view. Our Navy, thank God, does not need to pursue prestige policy; the services which it has already rendered us are too considerable and too important for that .”
with a word in this passage. The German admirals and captains in command of twenty-three or twenty-four of the most powerful ships in the world must certainly have been straining at the leash. This, then, would be a predisposing cause to a battle of some kind being voluntarily sought by the weaker force.
And in May, 1916, there were other causes as well. The German Higher Command, while ignorant perhaps of the exact points at which the Allies would attack, must have been very perfectly aware that attacks of the most formidable character, and on all fronts, were impending. It also knew that the resources of the Central Empires were to this extent relatively exhausted, that all the Allied279 attacks, when they came, must result in a series of successes, not of course immediately decisive, but such as no counter-attacks could balance or neutralize. Austria and Germany, in short, would be shown to be on the defensive. They would have to yield ground. It may not have seemed a situation bound to lead to military defeat. For the superiority of the Allies—at least so it may have appeared to the German command—in men and ammunition and moral, would have to be overwhelming to bring this about Neo skin lab.